NEW DELHI: The Indian Army’s assault dog Zoom is fighting for its life at Military Veterinary Hospital in Srinagar after terrorists shot it twice. It was operated upon as it had a gunshot wound on the face and rear right leg. Zoom was tasked with clearing the house where terrorists were hiding. The dog went inside the house and attacked the militants. During the operation, the canine was shot twice and suffered critical injuries. The dog, however, continued his task, which resulted in the killing of two terrorists. Zoom was then rushed to the Army’s Veterinary Hospital, where he is currently undergoing treatment.
An intelligence-based operation was launched by the joint team of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, CRPF and Army on Sunday. The surveillance had helped the forces to reach the target house, but the number of terrorists was not known. But, with the readjustment of the cordon and intermittent exchange of fire throughout the night, the forces confirmed the presence of two terrorists in the house.
The Army on Monday said, “During the period, it was spotted by own technical assets that one of the terrorists was injured. At that time, the brave Zoom was sent into the target house to retrieve the weapons from terrorists and pull them out of hiding,” said an Army source.
Zoom approached the target stealthily and pounced upon the terrorist. “It was fired upon by the terrorists in hiding, injuring him seriously. However, he was successful in destabilizing the terrorists, who were then effectively neutralized by the precision fire of the troops.”
Zoom, a Melanois or Belgian Shepherd was born in September 2020 and joined the Army’s 28 Army Dog Unit (ADU) and has a service of eight months with him. The Indian Army has a total of 32 units out of which there are 19 dog units serving in Northern Command which is responsible for the operation in Ladakh and J&K. Each canine unit has 24 dogs of different specialties.
Assault dogs are trained to attack terrorists with rifles hiding in a room or running away after an incident, said Brigadier Devender Kumar of Northern Command. “The assault dogs along with all other such canine soldiers deployed in different roles are proving to be an asset as have been found in the recent operations in Kashmir. The training has brought out positive results and we keep analyzing and improving our training,” said Brigadier Devendra.
The Army Dogs are trained at the Dog Training Facility based at Remount Veterinary College, Meerut. The dogs are imparted obedience and advanced training in specialist tasks like patrolling, guarding, tracking, avalanche rescue operation, Sniffer (explosive and mine detection).
The scope of training has recently been expanded to search and rescue ops, crude oil leakage detection and detection of IEDs. Historically, many dogs have been used to locate mine. They did not prove to be very effective under combat conditions. Marine mine detecting dogs were trained using bare electric wires beneath the ground surface. While the dogs effectively found the mines, the task proved so stressful for the dogs they were only able to work between 20 and 30 minutes at a time.
Fired upon by terrorists
Zoom approached the target stealthily and pounced upon the terrorist. “It was fired upon by the terrorists in hiding, injuring him seriously. However, he was successful in destabilizing the terrorists, who were then effectively neutralized by the precision fire of the troops”. Zoom, a Melanois or Belgian Shepherd was born in September 2020 and joined the Army’s 28 Army Dog Unit (ADU) and has a service of eight months with him. The Army has 32 units out of which there are 19 dog units serving in the Northern
Command